a book blog, and then some

Review*: Evermore by Alyson Noel (*rant)

I don’t think I’ve ever given up on a book so hard. I gave it my absolute best shot, but after reaching the halfway point I couldn’t even form sentences anymore. In the words of the almighty Schmidt, it was like Alyson Noel was ripping the side block out of my mental Jenga.

Evermore. Was. Ridiculous. Published in 2009 at the very height of Twlight’s popularity, Evermore is yet another painfully obvious rip-off with a ridiculously named protagonist: Ever. I mean come on.

There is no plot to this hunk o’ shit. It may well have reared its undoubtedly sub-par head after the 50% marker (which is where I jumped ship) but to not even hint at a possible plot until then in goddamn inexcusable. Who do you think you are Alyson Noel? Did you think your oh-so-gripping underdeveloped shit-agonist would keep me entertained and intrigued up until that point? With 150+ pages of meaningless high-school bullshit that – by the way – is riddled with spelling mistakes?

I don’t give a shit about your cliché and stereotypical characters who annoy the hell out of me by merely pretending to exist. Their endless, achingly dull (and 100% not Bechdel approved) conversations are insulting just for the mere fact that you are actually attempting to depict reality, here. Who the fuck is that boring. You?

I don’t care that love-interest Damen is OMG SO FUCKING GORGEOUS I CANNOT QUITE BELIEVE IT HE IS HOTTIE HOT HOT GORGY UMMM GORGEOUS OH MY GORGY DID I MENTION HE’S GORGEOUS? I know that you seem to think that a love-interest with a high ranking on the Gorgeousity Scale is of immense importance to the clueless hormonal lifeforms you apparently think young readers are, but I’d like to pleasantly inform you that a massive percentage of us are fed up of that assumption. Oh and fuck the “pleasantly informing” lie, I’d like to hit you over the head an encyclopedia-load of that information. Figuratively, always, but I’d hope you still got the message: I don’t give a shit about a gorgeous love-interest. The same goes for his ability to sing, play the piano, smile deliciously, drive really well, or even just exist in this state of utterly nerve-grating “Gary Stu-ness” that is completely false and utterly infuriating.

The only good thing about Damen is that he wasn’t a dick . Not that I know about anyway; anything could have happened in that last 50%. I have a “theory” that the dickhead love-interest trend came about when an author (bless, they tried) realized that well-crafted characters need flaws. Didn’t know why exactly, but one flaw would probably do, so they went with the poorly executed “badboy” flaw and left it at that. Which is exactly the kind of cop-out a shit ton of other sheep authors decided to fanny on with as well. Until Alyson Noel, the prized trail-blazer that she is, saw what they were doing and proclaimed her resistance to the trend. “I will create a nice love-interest!” she declared, inadvertently jumping back to a simpler time before the dickhead trend where everyone was perfect.

I have nothing else to say about this. Even thinking about this festering turd of a novel is killing a shit-ton of my brain cells. Just….just do not read this book.